Musical composition applications generally employ direct numeric value modifications (i.e. a MIDI “event list”), separate modifiable linear representations to define note characteristics, or simple rectangular bars to designate a pitch center over time against a pre-set grid, but with accompanying pitch modulation information displayed separately. Typically, a linear bar representation of a fixed note pitch and its duration, and another linear representation for pitch bend variables as related to the fixed pitch (FIG. 1) and still another to show relative volume levels (FIG. 2). While this method provides a degree of control over note characteristics it has a number of limitations.
Prior musical composition applications generally manipulate recorded, continuous sounds, whose basic pitch and volume properties are fixed. In prior art applications, pitch/volume can be roughly shifted overall as a whole, but the more complex a change, the greater the difficulty in enabling the manipulation of the sounds to reflect desired changes. Also, once a track is recorded (e.g. a violin track) prior art solutions enabling a change to the track for example from violin track to organ track would generally require re-recording of the whole track using an organ.
With some prior art musical composition applications, sounds are represented visually by a complex audio description of all the tones and overtones. The user can see that a sound sample is displayed, but may have no idea of its pitch and precise volume by simply looking at it. This creates restrictions in the ability of users to easily tune sound parameters. A musical composition includes numerous sounds, which compounds the problem.
Prior art musical composition utilities generally provide limited ability to manipulate musical content. There is a need for a system and method that provides musical composition functionality that is more flexible and responsive to users.
There is a further need for musical composition systems and methods that work well with touch interface computers.
Prior art linear visual presentations of a note's pitch variations and duration are not intuitive as they are managed by two different interfaces that function independently of each other (FIG. 1). Linear representations of pitch bend in prior art solutions are usually “stepped”, moving abruptly from one value to the next. Or, should the extra care be taken, a line is typically drawn from one percentage point to percentage to the next, and any in-between values are inferred from these straight lines. This does smooth things out somewhat, but either case tends to produce abrupt pitch changes at those points, which do not accurately reflect the fluid pitch transitions of many instruments like the violin (as shown in FIG. 1).
Additionally, prior art linear representations of pitch typically display an arbitrary means of representation above or below the set pitch, typically a value in MIDI pitch bend (0→16383) or a percentage of maximum possible variation. This is counter-intuitive, as percentages displayed don't inform the user what the bent pitch is in relation to the musical scale, only the degree of deviation from the fixed pitch.
Even if extra care is taken to provide linear paths between key volume points, as shown in FIG. 2 this too can produce abrupt volume changes at the transition points, which do not accurately reflect the fluid volume transitions of many instruments like the violin.
Also, a number of prior art musical “drawing” computer programs are known. These generally enable a user to drag a finger/stylus across a touch screen to produce notes. On such program is SoundBrush™ (see FIG. 3 for an example of this method). In these prior art computer programs, note drawing happens by assigning a specific pitch to a specific pixel or group of pixels on the touch screen (the “View”). This provides limited entertaining functionality but does not constitute a real musical utility for a number of reasons.
First, pitch-to-pixel mapping technology typically results in pitch stepping as activation leaps abruptly from pixel to pixel (FIG. 3).
Second, pitch-to-pixel pitch mapping is generally crude when making later adjustments to a drawn note, as the user is limited to ‘pixel on’ and ‘pixel off’ options, and paths—once drawn typically lose their identity as a single, cohesive path. Even if these issues are addressed, prior art solutions are still limited in their ability to smoothly represent pitch or volume transitions, as any manipulated paths would still be subject to the stepping inherent in pitch-to-pixel relationships.
Also, most musical “drawing” programs only allow the user to input variations in pitch, as the volume is pre-set to a uniform level. This ignores a key component of music; the variations of volume within a note or group of notes.
Therefore there is a need for an improved system for creating, modifying and generating musical notes that improves on at least one of these aspects. There is a further need for an improved musical composition application that improves on at least one of these aspects. This is especially true in recent years given the wide spread acceptance of touch interface computers.